Il Prefetto dei ghiacci

An extraordinary story of extraordinary men. In 1928 Umberto Nobile had planned to reach for the second time the North Pole with an airship, similar to that, the Norge, which had allowed him two years ago to conquer it with the great Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen. On board, including the crew, there were also the naval officer Adalberto Mariano, born in Rivarolo Canavese (Turin) and the radio operator Giuseppe Biagi. After flying over the top of the world, the Italian airship had crashed to the ground suddenly. Ten men and the dog Titina (mascot of the expedition) had been thrown on the ice, while six others remained trapped in the casing of the airship which was never found. Nine men and the dog were battered, but alive. Among these, there were Umberto Nobile, and Adalberto Mariano Giuseppe Biagi. The survivors, only the polar pack, had found a precarious refuge in a tent which was to become world famous as the Red Tent, and while Italy and other countries organized the rescue, Biagi was trying to convey with the emergency radio signals to communicate their position. But no one had heard them. View hopeless situation, Adalberto Mariano and two other men had gone on a long and terrible march on the ice in search of relief. The whole world was following the search of the castaways with great apprehension. Then, finally, the radio Biagi had done the miracle and its signals had been heard by an amateur Russian Arkhangelsk that raised the alarm. They left their patrols and aircraft to search and one of them had landed to rescue Umberto Nobile considered essential to organize relief. The aircraft was returned to board the other, but had capottato on the ice and the Swedish driver had remained a prisoner with the survivors of the Red Tent. The same Roald Amundsen had died during the search of the castaways of the airship Italy. Adalberto Mariano and the other two men in his patrol, meanwhile, had lived an unspeakable tragedy. One of them, Finn Malmgren, exhausted and frozen, had asked to be abandoned. Commander Mariano and Filippo Zappi, had gone ahead, but soon the same Mariano, without more forces, blind and with a frozen foot, had stopped. The two had expected death, but had been spotted by a Russian plane that had reported them to the icebreaker Krassin who had joined them and then had rescued the survivors of the Red Tent after forty days spent in the ice. The controversy to rescue Umberto Nobile had been fierce and would last years. The same Adalberto Mariano had been the subject, with Filippo Zappi, the horrendous and unjust accusation: he had left to die or even killing, Finn Malmgren and that he fed his corpse. Adalberto Mariano, later became Prefect of Cuneo where he stayed from 1931 to 1935.